Manually Editing Fractional Shares

Some stock splits may result in fractional shares, in which case manual adjustment is necessary.

Consider an example:

Before adjusting for stock split:

Tr

Date

O/C

L/S

Ticker

Shares

Price

Comm

Amount

42

01/18/2012

O

L

ABC

325

$48.11

$7.52

($15,643.27)

42

01/19/2012

C

L

ABC

487

$32.20

$7.00

$15,674.40

Open Shares: -162

On 1/18/2012, John bought 325 shares of ABC. A "3 for 2" stock split occurred on 1/19/2012.

Also on 1/19/2012, he sold 487 "post-split" shares so at the end of 1/19/2012 he did not have any shares of ABC still open.

Result after adjusting for stock split:

Tr

Date

O/C

L/S

Ticker

Shares

Price

Comm

Amount

42

01/18/2012

O

L

ABC

487.5

$32.07333

$7.52

($15,643.27)

42

01/19/2012

C

L

ABC

487

$32.20

$7.00

$15,674.40

Open Shares: 0.5

In the example above you will notice that ABC underwent a “3 for 2” split. At the time the split occurred, John held 325 shares open. Since this is a 3 for 2 stock split, the buy of 325 shares cannot be divided by 2 and multiplied by 3 equally. It comes up one-half share too high. The resulting number of shares is 487.5. Most likely the .5 share was distributed via cash in lieu of fractional shares in which case the .5 share needs to be removed from the Buy record and the Price needs to be adjusted so that the total Amount does not change.

To make the adjustment you should:

Select the Buy (open, long) record and use the Edit, Edit Single Record function (Function Key F2) to get rid of the .5 shares and change it to 487.

Change the price by subtracting the Commission from the Amount and dividing by the number of shares: $15,643.27 - $7.52 Commission = 15,635.75/ 487sh = 32.10626 (If you are adjusting an Open Short position you would add the commission amount before dividing by the number of shares.)